I posed some questions the other day on a posting about AirTran's pullout of SAN, but the thread was deleted (a duplicate, I guess). I would like to pose those questions again here:

Is there any word on a gate shuffle to move NW's flights closer to DL? I believe NW has two gates in T2 East, while Delta has several (four?) in T2 West. Would CO be willing to switch now that they are no longer in SkyTeam? And could DL absorb the MSP and one DTW (for now) flight into their gates?

In June, my Delta flight from SLC (a 757) arrived at the US/HP gates at SAN - one of the two directly on top of the baggage claim, so it's never hard and fast as to who docks where.

A poster predicted that SAN-MSP and SAN-ATL would see increases in capacity, with SAN-MSP becoming 757's and SAN-ATL would be a mix of 757's and 767's. Given airlines' penchant for frequency over capacity, and the desire by DL to keep wide-bodies flying internationally, I don't forsee anything changing - A320's to MSP and 757's & 738's to ATL, with an occasional 767 switching out.

Is there any word on the equipment types that will be flying SAN-MSP and SAN-ATL?

Finally, SAN-DTW has gone from multiple flights daily to one daily, and now it appears to be two daily. Will DL/NW maintain this city pair?

NW could move over to where the DL gates are now, and trade with someone else but it seems more likely that they would move to T2 West after they finish the expansion since there is no real reason for them to move over, NW only has a couple gates and isn't too far from DL gates. I'm sure they will move ticketing and check in over to where DL is now and rebrand the NW areas. Whats going to be really intersting is what aircraft DL starts using in SAN, maybe a couple 753s for SAN-ATL? Maybe some A320s to replace some 752s...

T2 West is pretty crowded as it is. US sometimes uses gate space over at T2 East.
Unless someone moves, and no flights are dropped, NW moving to T2 West will be very
tight. In fact, now that Air Tran and Aloha are gone from T2 East maybe DL should go
to that side, after all Aeromexico is next to NW over there.

I doubt that would happen due to the fact that DL has their Crown Room right next to their gates. With NW only having a few flights to SAN, I'm sure they can be slotted into the DL gates with some minor rescheduling being done - the tough part will be in the mornings, as NW has 2 RONs (MSP and DTW both leave around 830), DL has 5 RONs (SLC at 615a, JFK at 645a, ATL at 615a, 745a, 855a) - even at that schedule, it's not too hard to deal with overcapacity - have the SLC, JFK and first two ATL flights at the gates, and then bring in the third ATL, MSP and DTW flights in after the SLC, first ATL and JFK flights leave.

The other tight time is at 11-noon, when NW goes to MSP, DL to CVG, DL to SLC and DL to ATL. Even that is manageable with four gates though.

Beginning in November, both Delta and NWA kiosks will be adjusted so that passenger have the capability of checking in at either counter. Bags will also be accepted. Ttere will also be at least one person from each airline positioned at the other's counter.

Sometime early next year, NWA will move to the Delta position. The proposal is to relocate all kiosks away from the ticket counter to banks in the lobby and doubling the number. Also, more than likely, Delta will absorb the jetBlue counter space and take full control of gate 38, now shared with jetBlue and gate 37 now occupied by USAirways.

I just don't know if it makes sense to actually have NWA move over to DL, there just aren't enough NW flights. Maybe they could trade with jet blue so DL could stay next to their crown room (btw i'm surprised DL actually has a crown club in SAN just since it's such a small airport but i guess with all their ATL flights it might make sense).

I think they will stick to rebranding until the rest of T2 West is built then everyone can move around a little easier.

Quoting DL767captain (Reply 7):I just don't know if it makes sense to actually have NWA move over to DL, there just aren't enough NW flights. Maybe they could trade with jet blue so DL could stay next to their crown room (btw i'm surprised DL actually has a crown club in SAN just since it's such a small airport but i guess with all their ATL flights it might make sense).

I think they will stick to rebranding until the rest of T2 West is built then everyone can move around a little easier.

The guy in the post above yours just told you what was going to happen.

as much as i love T-2 west...i also have a feeling that we (jetblue) may be moving over to T-2 east. i know when we had our 3 redeye flights (to JFK, BOS, and IAD) we used 2 gates (38 & 23). but w/ only 2 redeyes now, i think we're only operating out of 1 gate. it unfortunatly does makes sense for us to move over and let NW and DL have 38.

also, if thats the case as well (if NW moves over to the west side) anyone think that would conflict with Hawaiian's HNL flight schedule? they do use one of the DL gates...

I have never been on a NW B757 to or from SAN out of DTW. I have always had the displasure of flying on the A320's. And when they did have 2 flights a day out of DTW to SAN it was a 900a and 730p departure out of DTW. But, I have never seen more then 2 flights to SAN from DTW at any give seasson. I know they have dropped down to 1 flight a day to SAN in the winter time. But, only once did they do that. Like I said before. It will be very intresting to see what DL does to DTW in terms of routes and aircraft types.

Quoting DTWAGENT (Reply 10):I have never been on a NW B757 to or from SAN out of DTW. I have always had the displasure of flying on the A320's. And when they did have 2 flights a day out of DTW to SAN it was a 900a and 730p departure out of DTW. But, I have never seen more then 2 flights to SAN from DTW at any give seasson. I know they have dropped down to 1 flight a day to SAN in the winter time. But, only once did they do that.

The April 2008 schedule had 2 DTW departures from SAN: #276 left Lindbergh at 8:30am (an A-320) and #278 at 12:35pm (was a B-757.) I also (easily) found the SDIA Flight Times dated May/June 2003 which lists SAN-DTW departures on NW at 8:25am (#276), 12:35pm (#278) and at 10:15pm (#274); DTW departures for Lindbergh were at 9:27am (#273), 3:44pm (#277) and at 7:18pm (#275.) I think this was the last issue of the SAN-issued flight pub; in any case, it was the latest one I could easily put my hands on. (BTW, this same schedule showed 4x daily MSP flights from SAN -- 2 of which op'd with 757s! I think 4 is the max frequency that route has ever seen.)

I remember that SAN had that NW red-eye to DTW for quite a while -- never to MSP, just to Detroit. And in the winter, I believe the schedule dropped the DTW frequency to 2x daily. The red-eye disappeared a few years ago, IIRC.

Quoting Sdexplorer00 (Reply 6):Sometime early next year, NWA will move to the Delta position. The proposal is to relocate all kiosks away from the ticket counter to banks in the lobby and doubling the number. Also, more than likely, Delta will absorb the jetBlue counter space and take full control of gate 38, now shared with jetBlue and gate 37 now occupied by USAirways

This is exactly what I envisioned happening; the handful of (current) NW flights will easily be absorbed in the Delta environment in T2W (where the Crown Room is located.)

Unfortunately HA has only the one flight any more and, again, unfortunately, it's after the real morning crunch is over (and therefore too late to make any of the intl connections HA offers out of HNL) so I'm sure it will stay at gate 41 indefinitely.

As mentioned, there are now more gates than ever open in T2E so I wouldn't be surprised to see Blue maybe migrate that way; maybe they could end up with a couple of gates next to each other. (And who knows, maybe THEY will eventually want/need more gates!)